Wonderful Wildlife

During the construction process special care was taken to protect wildlife in and around the buildings including amphibians, bats and birds. In the barn fledgling swallows appeared completely at home, displaying new skills over the heads of our builders. Wildlife friendly features have been designed in many buildings and the bats have a new ‘wardrobe’ residence in the roof space of the dairy. You’ll find bird boxes all around the centre, and several wildlife ponds. It’s not uncommon to see owls and woodpeckers in the vicinity of the conference centre.

Green Building

The buildings were carefully restored using traditional construction practices and materials. Stonework has been painstakingly repaired with lime mortar, roof tiles and timbers have all been reused extensively and most of the original roof trusses have been carefully repaired and reassembled.

Where it has been necessary to use new materials, these have been selected only after carefully considering the environmental credentials of the manufacturing process. We have used bio-paints and the kitchens in the studios are recycled kitchen units. The plant room is constructed from rammed earth blocks with lime render.

Renewable Energy

Following a very careful study and appraisal of the options and alternatives with our consultants, and a visit to the Centre for Alternative Technology to test out our conclusions, we have now installed:

• Bio-mass heating to all buildings from a wood-pellet boiler.
• A solar hot water system which meets a proportion of our needs.
• Rain-water harvesting - collecting water from the buildings adjoining the farmhouse, which is then stored reusing the historic stone water tanks and pumped into the farmhouse.
• Reed/willow bed foul water and sewage treatement, utilizing the power of nature.

Further renewable-energy projects are being considered for the future and may include an innovative wind turbine (after detailed ecological surveys), ground-source heat pumps and a micro-bore water turbine. No doubt there will also be exciting new developments yet to come.

Profits to Charity

The Folly Farm Centre is a subsidiary company of Avon Wildlife Trust, and has been established to manage and develop the Centre.  All profits from the Folly Farm Centre are gift-aided to the Trust to support its work with local wildlife.

Environmental Management

To ensure the centre minimizes its negative environmental impacts further still, we run an independently audited Green Dragon standard Environmental Management Standard, covering everything from procurement to waste disposal.